[03] Athens: FYROM PM cultivating nationalistic climate in his country

Appeals Court chief prosecutor Kyriakos Karoutsos on Wednesday
announced that an investigation of the Vatopedi Monastery land
exchange deals by his office will continue, in spite of a move by
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis the same day to set up a
Parliamentary investigative committee to examine the case.

According to Karoutsos the investigation will continue under Appeals
Court prosecutor Efstathia Spyropoulou, the third prosecutor just
recently assigned to the case, and was expected to be completed in
about a month's time.

One of the first steps she is expected to take as part of her
investigation is to summon employees of the Hellenic Public Real
Estate Corporation and the Legal Council of State to testify as
suspects.

It is not yet known whether the two prosecutors originally assigned
to the case, Ilias Kolioussis and Eleni Sotiropoulou, intend to
return after their resignations were not accepted by the justice
ministry. Sotiropoulou was back at work on Wednesday, serving on a
panel of judges in a trial that began on October 6, while Kolioussis
stayed away and claimed to be unwell.

Under the law, their resignations will become automatically accepted
after 30 days if they have not proceeded to retract them.

The two prosecutors resigned from the case and their office on
Tuesday, citing an inability to comply with the instructions they
received from Karoutsos to continue investigating a case that, in
their judgement, pointed to the involvement of ministers and had to
be sent to Parliament.

Karoutsos and Supreme Court Prosecutor George Sanidas defended the
decision to continue investigating on Tuesday, saying that the
evidence turned up by the two prosecutors was not sufficient to
support criminal charges against those involved.

[02] Political party reactions to Parliamentary probe of Vatopedi case

Greece's political parties had mixed responses on Wednesday to a
government move for a Parliamentary investigation committee to look
into the Vatopedi Monastery land deals. Some urged that Parliament
skip straight to an ad hoc preliminary examination committee that
might decide whether liable ministers should stand trial.

Main opposition PASOK spokesman George Papaconstantinou urged the
government to accept the proposal for an ad hoc preliminary
examination committee, adding that this would make an investigative
committee redundant, and asked the other parties to support the
proposal.

The spokesman also said the government was in a panic and had
sounded a "disorderly retreat" for fear of revelations that would
prove undeniable responsibility by its members, in a desperate
attempt to protect those responsible and buy time.

A Parliamentary spokesman for the Communist Party of Greece (KKE)
Achilleas Kantartzis repeated his party's demand for a full
investigation of the Vatopedi land deals, both through a
Parliamentary investigation to reveal the full extent to which the
state's property had been looted by transactions under New Democracy
and PASOK governments and, if ministerial culpability arose, to then
move to an ad hoc preliminary examination committee.

SYRIZA Parliamentary Group leader Alekos Alavanos called for an
investigative committee to go as far as a decade back in probing
possible political responsibility in the Vatopedi Monastery land
exchange deals with the Greek State.

Alavanos also stated that the case file should be sent to
Parliament, adding that a preliminary examination committee should
be set up immediately if "ruling New Democracy (ND) party government
ministers and deputy ministers are found liable, as the prosecutors
assigned to the case maintain".

He also disagreed with PASOK's stance of equating an investigation
committee with a preliminary examination committee, noting that the
latter would focus exclusively on investigating the scandal as this
related to ND and also because it could lead to a trap that would
work in favour of ND and the guilty parties.

"According to Parliamentary regulations, if Parliament decides not
to set up such a preliminary examination committee, then no new
proposal to press charges based on the same events can be tabled,"
he added.

Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) leader George Karatzaferis, on his
part, supported going directly to a preliminary examination
committee and said that his party would not support the motion for
an investigation committee tabled by Prime Minister Costas
Karamanlis.

"We will not compromise nor accept the Karamanlis proposal. We want
a preliminary examination committee because an investigative
committee means a lot of talk but little substance," he added.

[03] Athens: FYROM PM cultivating nationalistic climate in his country

A foreign ministry spokesman in Athens on Wednesday again to pointed
to widely reported statements by the premier of the neighbouring
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) as genuinely
nationalistic.

"Mr. (FYROM PM Nikola) Gruevski is cultivating a climate of
nationalistic hysteria in his country," spokesman George
Koumoutsakos charged, ominously warning that the current government
in Skopje is reviving the spectre of tyranny in the heart of the
Balkans.

"...which, consequently, leads most assuredly down the path of
isolation of his (Gruevski) country from European and Euro-Atlantic
institutions," said Koumoutsakos, who, in fact, cited the
Shakespearean line of "Serpent's egg".

In statements carried by media outlets in Skopje on Tuesday,
Gruevski was quoted as calling the brief detention of a television
crew from Skopje -- near military training grounds in extreme
northwest Greece -- a "serious precedent", as well as an "abuse" of
Greece's status within the European Union and "an attempt to
demonstrate power instead of democratic capacity of a 21st century
EU member-state..."

Economy and Finance Minister George Alogoskoufis on Wednesday said an
inner cabinet meeting approved a package of measures aimed at offering
protection to Greek banks and strengthening the Greek economy amid an
international credit crisis.

Presenting the package, Alogoskoufis said the government will offer a
state guarantee worth 15 billion euros to all financial institutions in
the country and noted that the move was aimed at cutting the cost of
financing. Also, the package includes the issuance of special bonds to
financial institutions, up to 8.0 billion euros, with banks offering
adequate insurance for these bonds. The government will also offer up
to 5.0 billion euros to strengthen Greek banks' capital base, with the
Greek state purchasing banks' preference stocks.

The Greek minister said that any bank interested to be included in the
measures will have to apply for approval with the Bank of Greece.
Alogoskoufis said that an international credit crisis has taken
unprecedented dimensions, creating problems to banks, undermining
confidence and liquidity problems in markets.

The banking system in Greece, he add, has solid basis, but because of
the crisis there was always the problem with rising interest rates and
lack of liquidity. Alogoskoufis said the package of measures was taken
to ensure fair competition, since other countries have taken similar
measures to protect banks.

The measures are compatible with actions agreed during an ECOFIN
meeting and an special Eurozone summit last week. The Greek minister
reiterated the government's political commitment to protecting all bank
saving deposits and noted that the package of measures would not put a
burden on the country's fiscal condition.

Bank of Greece's governor, George Provopoulos, told reporters that
Greek banks will take advantage of the government measures to avoid
facing any competitiveness problems and said that the package of
measures will be table to Parliament in the next 10 days.

Greek stocks plunged 7.04 pct in the Athens Stock Exchange on
Wednesday, following a sharp drop in other European markets over fears
of a global economic recession. The composite index of the market ended
at 2,381.57 points, with turnover at 281.3 million euros, of which 19.1
million euros were block trades. All sectors moved lower, with the
Financial Services (9.56 pct), Constructions (9.32 pct), Banks (8.39
pct), Personal/Home Products (7.84 pct), Raw Materials (7.45 pct) and
Utilities (6.81 pct) suffering the heaviest percentage losses of the
day.

Greek annual inflation slowed to 4.7 pct in September, from 4.8 pct in
August, Eurostat said on Wednesday. The EU executive's statistics
agency, in a monthly report, said the inflation rate in the Eurozone
eased to 3.6 pct in September, from 3.8 pct in August, but remained
sharply up compared with a 2.1 pct reading in September 2007. In the
EU, the inflation rate was 4.2 pct in September, from 4.3 pct in August
and 2.2 pct in September 2007.